UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia declared unlawful

  Thursday, 20 June 2019

source: abna

The court of appeal has declared British arms sales to Saudi Arabia unlawful because ministers failed to properly assess their contribution to civilian casualties in indiscriminate bombing in Yemen.
AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The court of appeal has declared British arms sales to Saudi Arabia unlawful because ministers failed to properly assess their contribution to civilian casualties in indiscriminate bombing in Yemen.
The ruling from three senior judges follows a challenge brought by Campaign Against Arms Trade, which had accused the UK government of licensing the sale of arms when there was a clear risk that their use could breach international humanitarian law.
In its judgment in London on Thursday, the court of appeal ruled that “the process of decision-making by the government was wrong in law in one significant respect”.
Announcing the court’s decision the master of the rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, sitting with Lord Justice Irwin and Lord Justice Singh, said the government “made no concluded assessments of whether the Saudi-led coalition had committed violations of international humanitarian law in the past, during the Yemen conflict, and made no attempt to do so”.
However, he added: “The decision of the court today does not mean that licences to export arms to Saudi Arabia must immediately be suspended.”
Future risks of breaches of humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition must be assessed by ministers when deciding whether to allow arms sales, in the context of past behaviour, the court said.
A spokesperson for the Department for International Trade said that ministers would seek leave to appeal. “This judgment is not about whether the decisions themselves were right or wrong, but whether the process in reaching those decisions was correct,” the spokesperson added.
The trade secretary, Liam Fox, is due to make an emergency statement in parliament this lunchtime, in which he will further spell out the response to the ruling.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a Labour backbench MP who was in court for the ruling, said that it was a “damning judgment” and that he would now press for a full public inquiry into the legality of UK arms sales to Yemen. He hoped that his party’s frontbench would follow suit.
He blamed past and present British foreign secretaries and other ministers for ignoring the evidence of civilian casualties and focused on the Tory leadership frontrunner, Boris Johnson, in particular. “This goes right to the top of the Tory party,” Russell-Moyle said.
The UK has licensed the sale of at least £4.7bn worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the start of the war in Yemen in March 2015, with most of the recorded sales taking place before 2018.
Sales are signed off by the foreign, defence and international trade secretaries, and ministers and former ministers including the Tory leadership candidates Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have defended the UK’s arms relationship with Riyadh.
Latest figures estimate that the death toll in the war in Yemen since 2016 is fast approaching 100,000 with nearly 11,700 civilians killed in attacks that have directly targeted them.
Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said: “We welcome this verdict but it should never have taken a court case brought by campaigners to force the government to follow its own rules.
“The Saudi Arabian regime is one of the most brutal and repressive in the world, yet, for decades, it has been the largest buyer of UK-made arms. No matter what atrocities it has inflicted, the Saudi regime has been able to count on the uncritical political and military support of the UK.
“The bombing has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. UK arms companies have profited every step of the way. The arms sales must stop immediately.”